In 2009, PSE began a major, 3½-year redevelopment of the Snoqualmie Falls facilities to ensure that they continue to produce clean, cost-effective electricity for centuries to come. The project entails substantial upgrades to PSE’s power-generating infrastructure and major enhancements to the public recreational facilities at Snoqualmie Falls.

More Here: PSE: Snoqualmie Falls Hydroelectric Project Upgrade

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“I never thought I’d forget that day,” he said when the generators 270 feet below the Falls were shut down.

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Magnuson’s world is changing by the day. Underground and on the surface, changes are already evident in Puget Sound Energy’s three-year, multi-million-dollar update of the Falls parks and power plants, which is now going into high gear.

Works starts this month on the construction of coffer dams in the Snoqualmie River, needed to remove decaying, century-old rip-rap and fill material where the power station once stood. Workers with contractor Barnard Construction of Bozeman, Mont., will soon lower the diversion dam by two feet, changing flood levels both upstream and down.

After the Falls’ power plant 2 shuts down June 15, major construction will update generators in both plants. The upgrades add an additional 10 megawatts of generating capacity to the old 44-MW system, allowing the Falls facility to power about 40,000 homes.

Already gone are the pedestrian bridge and two crumbling service buildings visible from the Falls park — the tip of the iceberg compared with big changes underground.

Aboveground, the landscape is changing daily, as workers and big machines transform the landscape at both power plant intakes, removing fill and structures alike.

“Once it’s gone, you kind of accept it as the new picture,” Magnuson said.

However, the new picture is meant to be as close as possible to an older one, from the era before the Snoqualmie Falls hydropower facility was built.

Park changes

Changes at the surface of Plant 1, including fewer buildings and a more original riverbank, are meant to give the site a more natural look.

“Power facilities will be less noticeable to those enjoying Snoqualmie Falls,” said Paul Wiegand, PSE’s vice president for power generation.

Once work is finished, the entire park will get improved trails, picnic areas, fencing and lighting, interpretive signs and kiosks, and better riverfront access, with new parking and restrooms in the lower park.

Construction is mostly done at the upper Falls park and lookout. Now, work, and disruptions to visitors, shifts to the lower park. Safety requires closure of the river launch area until early 2013.

Right now, all that can be seen at the surface of plant one is the elevator shaft. Soon, the penstocks, or large water pipes, will be removed, and a crane will lift aging equipment out of the underground chamber.

“We’re digging up history,” Magnuson said. “Most of what’s down there is staying.”

Four of the original turbines will be preserved. Lines have been strung across the Snoqualmie to allow divers to build two coffer dams along the bank. PSE’s contractor will then remove the fill, widening the channel as much as 39 feet and allowing flood waters to pass more quickly over the cataract.

Flood impacts

With a wider channel and a two-foot-lower dam, the Falls project is expected to lower 100-year flood levels in the city of Snoqualmie by six to eight inches, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers data. PSE has predicted a quarter-inch rise in 100-year flood levels in the Lower Valley as a result of the work.

The Falls dam is about four feet tall on average, and about 15 feet tall at its tallest point.

Flood mitigation was requested by the city of Snoqualmie and mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which approved the project. Company officials said notification on the project was given to parties of record during the federal approval process several years ago, including the city of Carnation and King County.

Neighbors Against Flooding, a group of concerned Lower Valley residents, have opposed the lowering of the dam. Last year, members of the group called on Puget Sound Energy to back a new study on flood impacts.

As work begins, PSE spokesmen say that no new study is planned.

“We didn’t think that cost-wise, it made sense,” said Jason Van Nort, Government and Community Relations Manager for PSE.

Van Nort said PSE is working with King County Department of Natural Resources on possible mitigation efforts for Lower Valley residents, but said that any mitigation would have to be in keeping with impacts, which PSE believes are small.

PSE officials insist that the Falls dam is a diversion structure, not a flood control dam, where water goes over the falls or through the power plants — but very little stays behind.

“We recognize we are part of the community,” Van Nort said. “If there is a way that is consistent with our impact, we’ll do something. We’re keeping our options open.”

Snoqualmie Valley Record Editor Seth Truscott can be reached at editor@valleyrecord.com or 425-888-2311.

Works goes into high gear for Snoqualmie Falls update
By SETH TRUSCOTT
Snoqualmie Valley Record Editor
Jun 08 2010, 2:16 PM

But the Snoqualmie River is also about electric power, and with upgrades now going into place, in three years it will provide electric power 40,000 homes.

Snoqualmie is also about history. You can’t see powerhouse #1, because it’s underground – 260 feet underground – generators brought down a shaft and assembled into a power plant piece by piece.

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A second power plant takes water from the opposite side of the river. There it shoots through a tunnel of a gate house and then down big pipes called penstocks to powerhouse #2. It was built in 1910, its main turbine and generator is still running.

On the other end of power plant #2, the newest turbine also cranks; it was built in 1957.

You can even feel the heat come off the old generator, PSE says that heat is wasted energy, and by installing more modern equipment and squeezing out those inefficiencies, the plants together will increase their ability to keep homes running, thousands more.

Structures including plant #2, and other buildings near the top of the falls that have already been razed, are vulnerable to earthquakes and are being replaced with new stronger buildings that will maintain the historic feel.

But the project is not just about flowing water and electrons. PSE is also lowering the dam at the top of the falls by 2 feet and widening the bank to their natural width, partly reversing a century of manmade interference.

That’s good news for people who live in the towns of Snoqualmie and North Bend above the falls. PSE claims in a 100-year flood, widening this hydraulic bottleneck will bring flood levels down by 6 to 8 inches.

But the water will fall to the lower part of the river faster, which does have a wider valley. PSE says that will raise water levels there only by a quarter inch. While that sounds small, it has not gone down well with some residents and business owners in downriver communities like Fall City.

Paul Wiegand, PSE’s Senior Vice President for Power Generation says it took 20 years worth of effort to get the permits in hand to make the upgrades, and license the power plants for another 40 years of use.

But as they say, “wait, there’s more!” Public parks and observation areas are in some cases already being upgraded. By late 2012 and into 2013, many improvements will be in place and back open. This includes a new Snoqualmie Falls Park interpretive plaza near powerhouse # 2 with better facilities for launching kayaks, and improved public access to lower viewing areas for the falls.

Across the river along the tracks of the Northwest Railway Museum, a new depot will be constructed that will interpret many of the historic aspects of the falls, including a display of one of those early turbines from 1898.

The Snoqualmie Falls Hydroelectric Project is Puget Sound Energy’s oldest power-generating operation and the world’s first completely underground power plant. More than a century after its construction, the facility still produces clean, cost-effective electricity for PSE customers. In addition, the hydroelectric project’s public park and trails have for decades been one of the Pacific Northwest’s most popular scenic destinations, drawing approximately 2 million visitors annually to view the majestic, 270-foot waterfalls.

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Location

Along the Snoqualmie River in Snoqualmie, Wash., about 30 miles east of Seattle

Current Hydropower Features

• Plant 1 powerhouse, built in 1898-1899 just above Snoqualmie Falls inside a bedrock cavity 270 feet below ground; plant’s five power-generating units have 11.9 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity
• Plant 2 powerhouse, built in 1910 a quarter-mile downstream from the falls and expanded in 1957; plant’s two generating units have 32.5 MW of generating capacity
• A small diversion structure, ranging about 4 to 18 feet in height, just upstream from Snoqualmie Falls; structure helps direct water to powerhouses and boost their power-generation capacity
• Steel penstocks (pipes) and concrete-lined tunnels for carrying river water to powerhouses
• Average power output sufficient to meet the electricity needs of more than 20,000 households

Public Accommodations

• Snoqualmie Falls Park, a two-acre site containing picnic areas, restrooms, and cliff-side observation areas for viewing Snoqualmie Falls
• A 10-acre recreation area with forested wildlife habitat, hiking trails, a kayak / canoe launching area, and a riverside boardwalk and observation platform for viewing Snoqualmie Falls
• Parking space for tour buses and approximately 450 cars

Project License

• Project’s federal operating license renewed June 2004 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), authorizing another 40 years of hydropower generation
• License amendment issued June 2009 by FERC, primarily for planned upgrades at Plant 1

Redevelopment Plan

Under the project’s federal operating license, PSE will be making substantial upgrades and enhancements to its power-generating infrastructure and public facilities, including:

• New generators, water-intake structures and penstocks at Plant 1 and Plant 2, boosting project’s authorized output of 44 MW to a 54 MW capacity
• Replacement of existing diversion structure with 2-foot-lower apparatus; new structure and riverbank work will ease upstream flooding in city of Snoqualmie with virtually imperceptible downstream effects
• Within PSE’s existing park boundaries, redevelopment work will include improved hiking trails, enhanced park accommodations and landscaping, new interpretive and educational signage, improved river access and parking for boaters, and new lighting and fencing
• Preservation and display of historical artifacts, photos and records
• Habitat improvements for fish and wildlife
• Increased minimum river flows over Snoqualmie Falls during summer months

Redevelopment Time Line

Major construction to commence in fall 2009 and continue, in stages, through 2014

Contact

Jason Van Nort
Government and Community Relations Manager
Puget Sound Energy
425-462-3820
jason.vannort@pse.com

About 5,000 years ago, soon after the glaciers receded, humans first came to our Valley. The glaciers left a fertile plain and a magnificent 300 foot waterfall. The river had been moved from its ancient bed by the glacier and could not seek its natural level because of the bedrock encountered at the lip of what we now call Snoqualmie Falls. Mountain goat were plentiful on the crags; deer, edible bulbs, bracken fern roots and berries were abundant on the prairie. Without salmon there was little to draw a permanent year-round population above the falls, but as trade between the Native Americans on the coast and those inland increased, the prairie of the Upper Snoqualmie became a traditional seasonal rendezvous area. To preserve the prairie productivity the Snoqualmie’s periodically burned off competition, keeping the valley floor clear. It was these cleared and fertile prairies that first drew white settlers to the area.

Early Exploration

Samuel Hancock was looking for coal when he hired a party of Snoqualmies to bring him up-river on a canoe trip in 1851. Several others had preceded him, but they did not commit their impressions to the pen. Just above the site of the current Meadowbrook Bridge, Hancock asked his guides what they called the area. They answered, in Chinook Jargon, Hyas Kloshe Illahee, which means a good (or productive) land. Samuel immediately recognized the agricultural and timber value of the area, and took this information back to his neighbors near what later became Tacoma.

The Indian Wars

Friction around Puget Sound increased as white settlers claimed the cleared land which had been used for centuries by the Native Americans for their naturalized bulb, berry and root crops. In 1856, Puget Sound settlers feared that Indians east of the Cascades would become allies of the coast tribes to annihilate the whites, so a series of crude wooden forts were built, including Fort Alden at Meadowbrook (about where the current trailer court is). No Indians ventured west and the forts were quickly abandoned.

Jeremiah Borst

In the spring of 1858, Jeremiah Borst, a twenty-eight year old man on his way to Eastern Washington over the Cedar River trail, decided that the Valley was too good to pass up. He settled down in what was left of Fort Alden to become the legendary “Father of the Snoqualmie Valley.” (He owned land in what is now Snoqualmie and North Bend, and platted Fall City) Jeremiah raised hogs and apples for sale in Seattle, and slowly bought up land from less successful pioneers. In 1863, the steep trail on the south side of Snoqualmie Falls was improved into a road and the transportation of goods to and from the Valley became easier.

Early Logging

As Borst and others farmed, a few tough pioneers began logging and milling operations. The first local mill, run by water power, was opened at the mouth of Tokul Creek about 1872 by Watson Allen. By 1877 there were twelve logging operations on the Snoqualmie River. Some logs were floated over the falls and down- river to Everett and the Sound. By 1886, logging camps on the river employed 140 men and sent millions of board feet of logs down stream.

Hop Farming

Three Puget Sound partners formed the Hop Growers Association in 1882. They purchased land from Jeremiah Borst in the Meadowbrook area, and soon expanded to over 1500 acres, about 900 of them in hops. The Snoqualmie Hop Farm was billed as “The largest Hop Ranch In the World,” and was head-quartered at Meadowbrook. Hop growing flourished for about a dozen years, and then world market conditions and aphid attacks brought an abrupt decline into the late 1890′s.

The Railroad

By 1889, Puget Sound entrepreneurs, tired of railroad barons bypassing Seattle and environs, had funded and built their own railroad, the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern, into the Upper Valley in a premature attempt to cross the Cascade mountains. This opened up our agricultural and timber resources to the markets of the world, and began the influx of tourists who still flock here to enjoy our beautiful scenery. In 1890 the railroad completed the still attractive Snoqualmie Depot.

North Bend & Snoqualmie Platted

With the railroad came a feverish speculation in Upper Valley land. North Bend was platted by Will Taylor in February of 1889 (as ‘Snoqualmie’), and Snoqualmie was platted in August of 1889 as ‘Snoqualmie Falls’ by Seattle interests. Tradition states that the first lots in Snoqualmie were purchased by Edmund and Louisa Kinsey. With their six children they built the first hotel, livery stable, general store, dance hall, post office and meat market. Edmund helped build the first church in Snoqualmie – the Methodist Church building that is now the American Legion hall, and his name is engraved on the church bell. Two sons, Darius and Clarke earned lasting fame for their photographic legacy of pioneer Northwest timber operations.

Power Plant at the Falls

In the late 1890′s a Civil Engineer named Charles Baker (who platted Snoqualmie in 1889) engineered and built the underground power plant at Snoqualmie Falls – which produced both electricity and local jobs. Baker’s original generators are still spinning today. A small company town, including a railroad depot, grew at the Falls to house workers. Expansion in 1911 added a second power house around the corner below the Falls.

Snoqualmie’s Incorporation

Snoqualmie voted for incorporation in 1903. A series of recessions and obstinate developers had created a challenging environment for the new town council, which met above Harding’s store. Lots were still $300 each, as they had been in 1889. In defiance of these high prices, citizens had built on street rights-of-way and on vacant lots. Dozens of buildings were in fact “squatting” on unpurchased land. The lot price was lowered and a long abatement procedure began to move barns, mills, stores and domiciles out of the public right-of-way. The result was a town much as we know it today.

Meadowbrook Farm

As hop ranching slowed, other types of agriculture flourished on the fertile land of the Upper Valley. About 1904, the farm was sold to A. W. Pratt, who, with Angus J. Moffat, managed Meadowbrook Farm, mainly as a dairy, into the 1950′s. As agriculture rapidly declined in the mid-1960′s, a group of local investors purchased the farm. In late 1993 the bulk of the remaining property was purchased by Snoqualmie and North Bend as passive open space, using funds from King County Conservation Futures bonds. This purchase creates a permanent buffer, wildlife habitat and flood storage area on the Valley floor between Snoqualmie and North Bend.

Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company

In 1917 the second all-electric lumber mill in the nation opened at the new company town of Snoqualmie Falls, built across the river from Snoqualmie. The economy of the Valley was given a significant and stable employment base. As World War I funneled mill workers away, they were replaced by soldiers to keep essential wood products, which included spruce for airplanes, in production. By 1923, A. W. Pratt was platting the Meadowbrook addition to Snoqualmie, and the Snoqualmie area was growing, including the construction of a brick hotel, movie theater and new bank building (now City Hall).>

Post Great Depression

The building boom in Snoqualmie, which included the erection of the brick-fronted buildings now housing the drug store, lasted until the Great Depression, which hit bottom in the Upper Valley in 1932. Salaries and wages fell, but the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company mill (now Weyerhaeuser) still continued to produce throughout the hard times.

World War II and the post-war boom increased the lumber requirements of the nation but also increased personal mobility. The building of US10 (Now I-90) bypassed the towns of Snoqualmie and Fall City and curtailed economic opportunity. Fortunately, the highway continued through the center of downtown North Bend for some years before the current bypass was built. The Upper Valley increasingly lost her sons and daughters to the urban centers, but was encouraged by the opening of a new Weyerhaeuser plywood plant in 1959.

By 1958 the bulk of the homes at the mill town of Snoqualmie Falls were moved to other places in the Valley, including a group that moved across a temporary bridge to the William’s addition. Snoqualmie had stabilized by 1960 to a population of 1,216, which grew slowly to 1,546 over the next thirty years, an average growth increase of just eleven persons per year.

Historical Attractions Are numerous and close between; you can do a scenic back road driving tour with 16 interpretive signs that tell of the land and people of Snoqualmie Valley. Travel through the Valley’s past and present visiting the following

1. The Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum with displays of historical photos and artifacts
2. The Snoqualmie Log Pavilion in the downtown historical railroad depot and log milling display.
3. Meadowbrook Farm, a native American Village site which became the worlds largest hop ranch.
4. Reinig Road Sycamore Corridor. This is tree-lined Main Street of the former company town of Snoqualmie Falls.
5. Mill Pond:  Snoqualmie Mill’s former log holding pond now home to a variety of fish and wildlife.
6. Tobul Creek Site of a Native American fishing camp and Valley’s first sawmill.
7. Snoqualmie Depot and Rail Way Museum: Its mission is to develop and operate an outstanding railway museum where the public can see and understand the role of railroads in the development of the Pacific Northwest, and experience the excitement of a working railroad.
8. Fall City Waterfront: The final upstream landing for early steamboats on the Snoqualmie River.

A Short History of the Upper Snoqualmie Valley
Written by Dave Battey of the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Society and released for public use

I too have an affinity for the Snoqualmie Valley having spent a considerable amount of time criss-crossing it, getting to know alot of the local businesses at a previous job. Cherie is spot-on when she says,

“I loved this area…I loved how rural and mountainous it felt. I loved that the land opened up and farm plots quickly replaced business complexes, pick-up trucks outnumbered BMW’s, tobacco was more common than chewing gum.”

Read the Rest of the Article Here

Seattle PI Reader Blogs
Eastside Extended: Review of Fall City Roadhouse
David Siegel
November 15, 2009

The two international visitors are exactly the type of consumers that many Snoqualmie Valley cities and businesses want to target—travelers with disposable income who come for the twinkling city lights of Seattle but stay for the adventures and beauty to be had in eastern King County.

Several dozen people—from city planners to bed and breakfast owners—came together Oct. 23 on Snoqualmie Ridge to discuss how to get consumers like Charoen and Phahohdon to stop and spend more money outside Seattle.

Read the Rest of the Article Here
 
Luring tourist dollars to Valley
SnoValley Star – www.snovalleystar.com
October 28, 2009
By tara ballenger

During the closure, Puget Sound Energy will undertake major landscaping projects including installing new walkways, lighting and common areas.

Public access to the main platform overlooking the falls will remain open, but there may be occasional limited closures.

The park will reopen around Nov. 1 after the major portion of construction has been finished. Project completion is projected for April 2010.

Seattle Times
Snoqualmie Falls Park gets face-lift
September 3, 2009